Due to popular demand and the grace of the muse, I've decided to expand one of my shorter pieces that I claimed I was leaving alone. It's probably a mistake, but I hope you enjoy it anyways. This will be a three-part piece. Canon divergence, based on the prompt to write a "kiss in secret." Katniss enters the Arena of the 74th Hunger Games with her best friend and hunting partner, but she's really not sure what to make of one of her mentors - the boy with the bread and victor of the 73rd Games. WARNINGS: RATED M, for canon equivalent mentions of violence, angst and sexual content.

"What the hell, Gale!" I shout, slamming my palms into his chest as soon as he steps off the elevator on the twelfth floor of the training center. "What kind of stunt was that? Telling everyone that you're in love with me?!"

He staggers back into a vase full of sickly sweet blooms. The porcelain monstrosity wobbles on its pedestal and then crashes to the floor, sending broken shards sliding across the floor. Gale ignores the mess, his eyes narrowing and his lip curling.

"Yeah, Katniss. I love you. This isn't how I planned to tell you, you know."

His biting tone only ignites the anger I've struggled to contain ever since he volunteered to take another boy's place in the arena. It isn't supposed to be this way. We had a deal. Gale is supposed to be with my family right now, taking care of them. The sickening feeling I felt after I shot that damn apple out of the pig's mouth during my training session returns ten fold. I shove him again, releasing a snarl.

"So what? You were going to tell me in the arena? That's even worse!"

"What's going on here?" Haymitch's voice sounds behind me and I whirl on him. He and the others have only just stepped off the elevator. Effie is clicking her tongue in disapproval, Portia holds her hand over her mouth, eyes wide in shock. Only Cinna gives me any kind of understanding. Except maybe him. But I can't bring myself to look at him just yet.

"This was your idea, wasn't it? To make me look foolish!" I yell at Haymitch. All the bastard does is raise his eyebrows as my other mentor steps between us, calmly placing his hands on my upper arms and steering me away from everyone else.

His steadiness and warmth placate my frazzled nerves. I let him lead me into one of the opulent sitting rooms of our living quarters. Once inside, I pull away from him and stalk to the window.

"It was my idea, Katniss," Peeta says softly. My spine stiffens and I squeeze my eyes shut. Not him, too, I think as I fight back the feelings of betrayal. But for there to be betrayal, there would have to be trust. And how could I possibly trust Peeta Mellark? I barely know him. He deceived me, used me, made me ridiculous, same as Gale and the others. Still, I allow him to continue speaking in that soothing tone of his. The one he used to calm me down and reassure me after what could have been a disastrous private training session with the Gamemakers, and after my insufferable interview training with Haymitch.

"Maybe it wasn't fair not to warn you. I apologize for that. Haymitch thought it would work better if you didn't know. Then your reaction would be genuine. If it makes you feel any better, Gale knew you'd be angry."

"He still went along with it, didn't he?" I bite out the words, almost hurting my teeth in the process.

"It wasn't meant to hurt you, Katniss. It was meant to make you appear desirable. Mysterious, intriguing. Not that you need help in that department. The audience is already leaning in favor of you, they simply want to know who you are."

"They can't have me!" I wail, knowing I must sound childish. "They've already taken everything else!"

"I know," he says. And that's the thing. He would know. "Volunteering for your sister, your showing in the parade, your training score that no one can explain just yet. All you needed was one last push. Something to help balance out the target you and Gale have managed to put on your backs.

"You two are something they've never seen before. The star-crossed lovers of District Twelve," he proclaims with sudden rancor. "They'll eat it up, assign you an identity and all you have to do is continue to surprise them. Keep them on their toes. And the sponsors will be lined up around the block."

I stare out over the city lights, still fuming, but as his words sink in, it dawns on me that he's right. Peeta is right. Tributes with the highest training score often die early in the Games. The others sometimes band together to take out the biggest threat first. And with our combined high training scores and the success of Cinna's parade costumes, we're actually favored. Which makes us a threat.

But now, no one in the Capitol audience will be able to forget me. Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire, also flaming in love with her childhood friend, the boy who came here with her. One volunteer from 12 is unheard of, but two? That has caused a frenzy amongst the reporters. I volunteered to save Prim. Even though I'm still not sure why Gale volunteered, it will be easy to spin the story to make the audience believe he volunteered to protect me.

The Capitol loves stuff like that. Last year, Peeta won them over with his charm and humor, but also with the story of a girl back home he'd always had a crush on. He'd claimed that if he won, he would finally take the chance to tell her how he felt. Only I can't recall ever seeing him with a girl in the past year since he was crowned Victor. Even Delly Cartwright seemed to be keeping her distance.

My eyes meet his in the glass, twin orbs of tormented blue. Was Peeta's tale all an act, too? Or had he just never found the courage after all? Or worse...had she rejected him? I don't know why she would. Victors are rich. Whoever she is, she and her family would never want again. Besides that, Peeta's kind and handsome, even without all the Capitol primping.

I try to find another reason to be angry. But I can't. It's all so confusing. My best friend and I are going into the arena together. At least one of us won't come out of there alive. I bite my lip and try to hold back tears. I can feel Peeta approach me from behind, warmth hovers over my shoulder, a phantom hand reflected back at me in the glass window. I lean towards the touch.

He and Cinna are the only people who've made me feel human here, justified for not celebrating my status as Tribute.

"I don't know what to do, Peeta," I whisper. The hand jerks back and he clears his throat. Without warning, the tough mentor who insisted I step up and take credit for my skills, demanded that I not give in or crumple after a rough day practicing for interviews with him and Haymitch returns.

"You stay alive, Katniss. Just like Haymitch told you to."

I find my anger and use it to finally spit out the words. "What do I do if Gale and I are the last two standing? I can't kill him."

"It probably won't come to that," he says icily. I wipe the moisture from my eyes, not caring if I've smeared Cinna's carefully applied makeup and turn to watch him leave the room. "But if it does, you know they have to have a Victor. The Games don't work without a Victor."

I swallow back bile, knowing that he's just trying to prepare me for the worst. But the worst is something I cannot stomach. Something I can't face.

"You have time to shower and change before dinner, if you like," he throws over his shoulder, and then he's gone.

I can't sleep. Strategies and possible arena landscapes whirl through my head as I try to determine my best strategy for surviving. After apologizing at dinner, Gale suggested we stick together in the arena, as if there was ever any doubt that we would. It will be better that way, the two of us working together as hunting partners. His words about how this would be no different than hunting game back in our woods pick at the edges of my brain. Still, I agreed to the plan. Anything else but allying myself with Gale is unthinkable.

I need sleep now, but it won't come. So I slip from my bed and head back up to the roof, the place Peeta showed me on our first night here, after he covered for me and Gale when I recognized the red-haired Avox. Gale had stormed off to his room and Peeta brought me here, seeking the truth of what he'd covered up so easily. Lavinia, he'd said her name was.

The wind whips over the roof and I watch him standing there, silhouetted against the city lights, his curls, clean and free of Capitol products, dance in the moonlight. I wonder what it must be like, to have survived an arena only to find you have to send someone else into it, to guide them through, knowing their chances of death are far higher than their chances of survival. No wonder Haymitch drinks. I briefly wonder how Peeta deals with it.

"Couldn't sleep?" I ask. He startles and turns to face me, wincing as the swift movement must hurt his leg, the one he lost in his Games.

For the first time, Twelve had a Career Tribute during Peeta's Games. At first, the District had been stunned. But then his plan became clear to the audience, if not the other Tributes. He manipulated the other Careers and used their might to keep both himself and the girl from Twelve alive. When the Career Alliance inevitably broke, Peeta knew what each of the survivors would do, and so he was able to keep himself alive longer. At the end, it came down to an emaciated Peeta and the giant, vicious boy from District Two. When the Gamemakers finally drove them together, the fight was brutal and bloody. Both of them sustained horrible injuries.

Peeta won because the other Tribute bled out before he did. He managed to fashion a sloppy but effective tourniquet for his leg. By the time the trumpets finally announced him as Victor, it was too late to save his limb.

Panem was astonished. No one had expected the funny, charming fifteen year old boy from District 12 to win. I certainly didn't. I search now for some sign of the boy who once threw two loaves of burned bread to a starving girl in the rain, providing her with the spark of hope that made it possible for her to not only survive, but to provide for her family.

His face softens, the cool mask of the Victor and Mentor falling away, and for a moment, I glimpse the boy who could never quite meet my eye in school.

"No," he says. "You?"

I wrap my robe tighter and look out over the city. "Did you, the night before you went in?"

"Course not. Are you thinking about your family?" I'm hit with a wall of shame mingled with anger. My fingers and toes practically burn with it.

"I was...no, it's too painful to think about them."

"I can understand that."

"Is that what you thought about? On your last night? Your family?"

"No, it wasn't," he scoffs lightly and once more faces the city lights. I pad my way over to stand beside him, lean against the railing. Maybe he's been a bit of a hard-ass on me and Gale, but I can recognize that he's just trying to help us, especially when he gifts me with these softer moments. When he's the boy with the bread again, if only just for me, for just a few stolen moments.

We stand in silence, and I'm not expecting him to expand on his denial.

"I spent my last night thinking about how I wanted to die as myself. It never occurred to me that I might actually win."

"I don't understand," I say. "How could you die as someone else?" Confusion furrows my brow.

"I didn't want to become a monster in the arena," he explains with a kind smile. "I wanted to show the Capitol that they didn't own me. That I was more than just another piece in their Games."

Fighting back my feelings of inferiority, I send my glowers out over the roofs of the city. Peeta Mellark spent what he expected to be his last nights alive worrying about his purity of self. And I've been ruminating on the availability of resources and how exactly I can let my best friend die without killing him.

"How did you do it? Not become a monster?"

"Well I'm still working on that," he answers lightly, and I finally face him, stunned by the spark of levity I find in his eyes. "I'm not proud of some of the things I did in there. But I couldn't go down without a fight either. And my reward," he sneers out the word, "Is to never stop being the piece in their Games that I never wanted to be."

He gestures between us. Us. He's talking about me. And Gale. And how Peeta now has to send us into the same nightmare he already lived. It's his first year as mentor, and Twelve rarely has Victors. Never have we had back-to-back Victors. Tomorrow I could be dead. There's something I've never said and it weighs on my chest. I think of Prim and my mother at home. Even if I win, will I go home a monster to them?

It's not a line of thought I can afford to follow, but the words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them.

"I never thanked you."

Peeta grimaces at my words. "You've got no reason to be thanking me."

"No, not for being a good mentor, although you were that, too," I stammer over the words. "I meant for the bread."

"The bread?" he asks and for a moment, I'm sure that I was right that day of the Reaping when he placed a hand on my shoulder to guide me into the train and protect me from the cameras being shoved in our faces, when I thought he didn't remember that hollow day in the rain. "You mean from when we were kids?"

My face flushes at his incredulous tone. "You didn't have to give it to me. I just...didn't want to die still owing you for it."

"Wow," Peeta says and I am about to fly off the handle at his cavalier attitude. "Katniss you don't owe me a thing."

I try to argue, to tell him that I do. That if I live through this, I will never stop owing him for saving my life. But he cuts me off.

"You still have some night left. You should try to get some sleep."

"My family," I whisper. "My sister. If I don't…"

I stare at the ground while he stares at me, following my half spoken sentence to it's logical conclusion.

"I'll make sure they're taken care of," he promises. I meet his earnest gaze and relax. I believe him. "But you have to promise me that you'll fight. That you won't give up. They need you more than anything."

"I promise," I whisper, thinking about how similar my promise to Peeta is to the one I gave to Prim.

"Then so do I. No matter what happens in the next few days, your family is taken of, alright?"

I nod and leave him on the roof. With the comforting knowledge that my family will not starve if I die, I walk back to my room and slide between the covers. Surprisingly, I manage to sleep.

It ends up being me and Gale.

We stand next to the Cornucopia as they take away the bodies of the boy from District one and the girl from District Two. Tears fill my eyes as my mind scrambles for a way out of this. I can't kill him. I can still hear the screams of the girl as my first arrow pierced her shoulder. See the look of shock on her face when the next came flying straight for her eye.

We stand there and stare, our families trapped in the air and the unspoken words between us.

And then I'm not thinking of Gale or my family, but of Peeta, up on the roof. It isn't the first time I've thought of him in here. I thought of him as I held Rue while she died.

Sweet, resourceful Rue, with whom I formed an alliance with against Gale's wishes. When she died, I thought of Peeta and his words about not being pieces in their Games. So I buried her in flowers and sang to her. You don't memorialize a token in a game.

He'd done something similar last year, when the girl from Twelve died. He'd sung a District funeral song over her body, his voice rough and untrained, but raw with emotions.

And I thought of Peeta every time I forced my lips to Gale's, to play the role of star-crossed love. It seemed to be working. There was that rule change, at least until now.

The announcement echoes in through the arena, and I know this was another Gamemaker trick. Maybe Peeta and Haymitch engineered the rule change in the first place, I don't know. But the Gamemakers never intended to let both of us live.

I remember his words about them needing a Victor. And about how we're something they've never seen. How I should just keep them guessing. I realize that I've been played. We've been played right into their scheme to orchestrate the most dramatic final showdown the Games have ever seen. They need a Victor…What if they weren't going to get one? What would they do then?

I glance down at my belt and pull out my knife, stare at the metal as it glints in the newly risen arena sunlight. Then I lift my head to look at Gale.

"Gale," I say in a choked voice. "Do you trust me?"

I turn the knife on myself and hold its point against my chest.

"Catnip, wait…"

"They need a Victor," I echo Peeta's words to him. "Or the Games don't work."

His eyes cloud with anger and I watch him work through my words. My hands shake violently and I'm afraid he won't figure it out, the gamble I am taking. But then, he pulls out his own knife and looks to me for approval as he turns it on himself, the point aimed straight for his heart.

"On three?"

I nod and he licks his lips, clearly mulling something over before he speaks.

"I love you," he says. My heart sinks. I don't want those words. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever. How can he do this to me? But I have a role to play, so I force myself to speak.

"I know," I manage, and it's the wrong thing to say. I can see it in his eyes. Like I know he can't help loving me, but that I don't love him back. I don't know if I can. Not after what we've been through. I don't know if I can love anyone. Not even in this moment right before we may both die. Gale's spine straightens and he nods, then he begins to count.

"One, two-"

"WAIT! STOP! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR VICTORS!"

Our knives drop to the clearing and Gale's arms wrap around me. I melt into his embrace.

It tears us apart, pretending to be deliriously in love. First in the Capitol and now on the tour. In public, we hold hands. We kiss and dance. Our mothers are ecstatic for us. When the cameras leave, he glowers and I turn my back on him. Unable to let myself love him. How could I? How could I open us to the possibility of a future? To the possibility of children who might be forced into the Games. He has to know any children we had would be guaranteed a spot in an arena. After the stunt we pulled, and the visit from Snow, reminding me that everyone I love is at risk unless I convince Panem of my deep, abiding love for Gale.

Nightmares plague me on our Victory Tour. One night, they are so bad, that Peeta shakes me awake. I cling to him, begging him not to leave.

"It's okay," he whispers as he holds me, strokes his hand over my back to soothe me. "I get them too. Every night."

I turn my face into his neck and breathe in his clean scent. "How do you face them?"

"I paint. Or I walk."

His paintings. That's right. I remember now that painting was his Victor talent. His work is gorgeous and hauntingly real. I try to recall some of the paintings of his that I've seen. Vivid images of his Games and of our District come to me in swift succession. And now, as a Victor myself, I can recognize the pain and fear behind the brushstrokes.

"I was walking tonight when I heard you," he releases me and shifts, stands away from my bed.

I watch him leave, wanting to call him back, but unsure how to make him stay. The next night, he shakes me awake again, and this time, when I ask him to stay, he shakes his head.

"Gale…"

"I asked you," I tell him, unwilling or unable to explain the rift forming between me and Gale. The angry words and expectations I can't seem to fulfill. All I know is that Peeta is steady and warm, and I am terrified of my dreams.

Every night after that, I let Peeta into my bed, asking him to stay with me. The nightmares still come, but he wakes me sooner, and in his arms, they don't make as many repeat appearances. His hands card through my hair as we breathe together, and I think of how he kept a long vigil his last night in the arena, his leg bleeding as he waited to die or be crowned Victor. Did he think of that girl he had a crush on to keep himself conscious? Was he fighting for her?

"Who was she?" I ask in the dark and Peeta's hand freezes. "The girl you mentioned in your interview. The one you had a crush on. Who was she?"

"It doesn't matter," Peeta whispers. "She loves someone else. They're practically engaged."

"I'm so sorry," I say as his fingers resume their caresses, pulling me back into slumber.

The square is hot and dry as we stand on the stage. Three male Victors, one female. Two of us bound for a second trip to the arena. My name is no surprise. And truthfully, I am not surprised when they call Gale's name, either.

"I volunteer as Tribute," Peeta's voice rings out clear across the square.

Gale reaches out and grabs his arm, but Peeta shrugs him off, a hard look on his face. He moves to stand next to me as my insides pitch and heave.

Not Peeta, I think as I fight my face to conceal my thoughts. I hold it together as they drag me to the train without getting to say "good-bye" to my mother and sister. I even manage to keep it together as Gale steps up and starts outlining strategies on the train. We're old hats at this by now, the four of us, since Peeta insisted we start training as soon as the Quell announcement was made.

When Gale and Haymitch finally suggest Peeta and I get some rest, I follow him to his compartment and shove my way inside before he can shut the door.

"Why?" I hiss at him.

"Isn't it obvious, Katniss? Whatever resistance you two have managed to stir up could be crushed by sending you both back into the arena. I can't keep you out of there, but I can keep him out."

He opens the door and motions for me to leave. I refuse to believe that's it. The fledgling rebellions in the District cannot be his only reason for throwing himself back into the arena.

"I won't let you die for me," I tell him on the threshold. For a moment, he looks panicked, and then his eyes narrow.

"Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart."

Then he shuts the door, leaving me feeling hollow and missing my friend. It's what he's become over the last year, as I dealt with my growing disgust with myself and what I did in the arena to the other Tributes, to Gale. I have faked this romance and pushed it so hard, I feel as though I'm hemorrhaging.

That night, the dreams revisit me, as awful as always. I leave my room, hoping maybe Peeta is awake too somewhere, so we can talk the way we did on the Victory Tour and nearly every day since. So he can hold me and tell me that what I see isn't real.

I find him in the TV room, reviewing tapes of old Games, part of his training strategy for us. He stands as soon as he sees me and says nothing, just opens his arms for me. I fall into them and release a shuddering breath as his warmth envelopes me, his lips pressing to a point on my neck. We sway with the train and he whispers an apology. I whisper one back. Without another word, I lead him to my bed.

In a week, one of us will be dead, and I no longer care if I'm supposed to share this feeling of rightness with Gale. I share it with Peeta. As we lay in the dark, managing the demons, I think of how different things might have been if it had been me and Peeta in that arena last year. Would we have found each other and held one another the same way we do now? Would we have discovered a way to trick the Gamemakers into letting us both live?

I suppose Peeta is right. It doesn't matter.

"I never told her. The girl I spoke of in my interview. When I got home, I realized pretty fast what a mess I was. A monster. And I thought she didn't deserve that. She deserved someone who wouldn't destroy her life, no matter how much money and security I came with. So I stayed away, didn't say a word."

He presses a soft kiss to my forehead as I think back on all the little touches and the kindness he's shown me since I volunteered for Prim. The careful way he's held me and yet held himself away. I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine the boy with the bread as his blue eyes flit away from mine in the school hallways. I wonder how I didn't see it sooner.

"Then I became a monster, too," I murmur. Part of me wishes it were a lie, but another part of me knows it's the truth.

I tilt my head back and meet his eyes. They appear glassy in the soft glow of the train's night lighting.

"You can't think like that," he whispers, brushing a strand of hair off my forehead. "You have to live. To fight. For your family if nothing else. They still need you."

His words recall our last night before my first Games.

"What about you?" I ask.

"Nobody needs me, Katniss." He says it as though it were a fact, cold and unchanging. No self-pity. No bitterness. Just truth. Maybe he's right. His family and friends would continue after a time of grieving. Even Haymitch could probably drink away his sorrow at losing his first Victor. But me…

I close my eyes and lean closer to him, so I can feel him breathing against my lips.

"I do," I say. "I need you."

Before he can protest, I kiss him, sealing our mouths together and swallowing his half-formed words, tasting them with my tongue. I allow myself to accept it, what's real. I've wanted to kiss him for a long time.

Eventually, he gives up on talking and shifts so he can wrap his arms around me fully, rolls so that I sprawl on his chest as unbearable heat licks its way over my skin. Instinct tells me to brace my knees on either side of him, to straddle him so that our bodies are linked as closely as possible. I tangle my fingers in his hair and feel the softness, drinking the sounds as he groans and shifts his hips so that his emerging hardness brushes against me. I gasp at the shiver of delight this causes and then his tongue is in my mouth.

Gale's never kissed me like this, I briefly think before I am consumed with the kiss and thoughts of only Peeta when my brain actually manages to settle on a thought. Otherwise I am nothing but heat and hunger, seeking his light and every small caress of his fingers over my scalp and skin. I'm expecting the feelings to taper off in satisfaction or disappointment. But they don't. I've known all kinds of hunger, but never one like this. His kisses only make me need more.

The train sways and a bell clangs loudly outside as we pass through one of the District stations at full speed.

Peeta tears his lips from mine, remorse written all over his face.

"You're engaged," he whispers. "To Gale."

He shoves me off of him and stumbles from the bed, getting caught in the sheets. He sprawls to the floor and I sit there, stunned, watching as his fingers curl into the carpet before he gingerly regains his feet.

"This was a mistake," he says, motioning to the bed. To me. "All of it. I knew it on the Victory Tour but I couldn't seem to stop myself. I just wanted a taste. One small taste of what it's like to be loved and not seen as a murderer."

I shake my head, a denial on my lips.

"No, Katniss. You don't really love me. I let it go too far. And I am so sorry."

It isn't until he's left me that I'm able to find my voice. I sit there, grasping onto the feelings of lightheaded happiness that filled me while I kissed him. But they've fled with him, leaving only a hollow of dead brush where flowers could have grown.

"Stay with me, Peeta," I croak, knowing he won't answer me this time.